Which brings me back to the kiss. And before that, to the night before the funeral when I held him and we almost kissed. I recount every moment in the past week we’ve touched or gazed at each other. There has been so much longing and tension, and all of it secret because both of us know what’s riding on whatever’s brewing between us.
He wants you. My sly little voice says. And what the hell are you going to do about this mess?
I don’t have an answer. I finish my work calls, including a call to Sandra to tell her the board loved the proofs and we’ll go with the lapis. I was surprised and thrilled when I got the e-mails back raving about her invitations, and I can’t wait to share it with her. I want so badly to confide in Sandra about what’s going on, but I’m afraid she’ll tell me I’m crazy. She doesn’t pick up anyway - probably having hot sex with the boy toy, I think wryly - so I leave a message.
As I get dinner started, I remind myself of all the reasons - very valid reasons, I might add - that it didn’t work out between Grady and me. The drinking. The late nights. Him playing in that fucking band. The fact that he couldn’t stop being twenty-five for three seconds and be a husband and father instead of an overgrown boy.
I remember the night I kicked him out and try to conjure that fury, but all I can feel is the warmth he’s given me all week. Grady has become the man he wasn’t able to be then, the man he was on his way to becoming when I married him. I know with absolute certainty that the man he is today would never do the things he did eleven years ago. Never.
He no longer drinks. He doesn’t break promises. He puts his kids first. He is as dependable as the sunrise, just like the boy I fell in love with who vowed to give me the world. Grady was always a good person, he just did a lot of not-so-great things during the final two years of our marriage. If I’m being absolutely and perfectly honest, I was no saint, either. I was a raving bitch for most of our marriage after Caden was born. But he has never held that against me, has never thrown it in my face the way I’ve done to him, and the thought is more than a bit humbling.
The hours crawl by. It’s one o’clock. Then two. At two-thirty I jump in the shower and spend far too much time shaving and exfoliating. Like a slut! the voice in my head cries gleefully, until I shut it down by reasoning that I have a very important event to attend on Wednesday night and this is the only day I’ll have to pamper myself that much.
The voice in my head is not fooled.
I almost put on lacy underwear, then decide that’s really taking it too far and opt for a satin set, telling myself it’s because I’ve had a rough week and I want to feel pretty. I pull on jeans, the expensive ones that make my butt look good, and apply just a touch of makeup.
Then I make the biggest mistake of all, which is plopping down with my e-reader to kill the last bit of time. The dominant ginger-haired billionaire’s moves with the ice cube don’t do much to cool me down. All I can think about is Grady calling me “goddess” and touching me on the front porch until I’m begging for him.
What if he wants to have sex? What if he wants to get back together? What control will I have if he touches me? I don’t have answers for any of these questions, and the more I think about things the more confused I am.
And then I hear his truck in the driveway, and I absolutely lose my shit. I duck my head between my knees and breathe deeply so I won’t start hyperventilating. I have worked this whole thing up in my head to the point where I’m freaking myself out unnecessarily. All he said was he was coming over. He didn’t say anything about seeing me in or out of my underwear and he didn’t say anything about getting back together. It’s a visit, not a marriage proposal.
Except it’s a visit when he knows the kids are at practice, and the electrical current that’s been running between us for the past week is stronger than ever. We kissed, and that kiss means unfinished business between us. Whatever this is, it’s more than just a visit.
Thump, thump, thump. Three brisk knocks. I clutch my chest and breathe deeply as I open the door, and then there’s Grady on my front porch, looking like something invented for the sole purpose of making me suffer.
Dear lord, he looks good. He’s overdue for a haircut, and I want to twine my hands through those soft, dark curls like I did in Donna’s hallway. There’s about three days’ worth of dark growth on his jaw that I want to feel scratching on the insides of my thighs, and knowing that his lips would be cold if they brushed against my skin right now sends a little shiver through me. His blue eyes fix on mine and he smiles. He’s so beautiful all I can do is stare.
Underneath his waxed canvas jacket I can see the open collar of a flannel shirt. I long to press my tongue in the warm hollow of his throat, taste him while his pulse surges against my mouth. How is it possible that he looks even more gorgeous today than yesterday when I saw him last?
“Cass.” He looks slightly amused that I’m gawking at him while he freezes in front of me. It’s much colder here than in Delaware, and his breath is frosty as he shifts impatiently from one foot to the other.
“Right. Yeah, sorry.” I open the door wide and when he brushes past me I get a faint whiff of cedar. Oh, God.
When I hang up his coat I resist the urge to bury my face in it. It’s still warm from his body, and I want to wrap myself in it. You are truly losing your mind, I chastise myself. It’s a coat. Get a grip.
“Coffee?” I ask.
“Sure, that’d be great,” he replies, rubbing his hands together to warm them and following me into the kitchen.
“Was it okay coming back? Was there much traffic?” I ask.
“Not so much. I made good time.”
“The kids will be sorry they missed you.”
“I hope I’m still here when they get home,” he says.
Oh. My. God. “Oh?” My hands tremble a bit as I open the fridge for the cream. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
Where in the hell did that come from? My cheeks burn and I stick my head deeper into the crisp air, hoping to cool myself down.
“We need to finish the conversation we started earlier this week, and that might take a minute. Not till dinner. But I’ll stay if you’re asking.”
The conversation we started earlier this week. My heart is pounding so hard I can’t hear myself think, which is just as well since my brain is a jumble of thoughts anyway. I motion to the kitchen table. Grady sits and wraps both hands around his coffee mug, warming them. I walk to the table and sit down before my legs give out on me.
“Thank you, Cass,” he begins.
I manage a smile, though I’m not sure what he’s thanking me for, and he continues.
“For a very long time I’ve had an apology sitting on my chest.”
“Grady, I already told you, you don’t—”
“Let me finish.” He’s firm, but his voice is gentle. “I know I wasn’t a perfect husband, but you need to understand that I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know that,” I say, but it’s a knee-jerk reaction and I can tell he knows it.
He shakes his head. “I don’t think you do. At the time I was so wrapped up in more. Doing more. Giving you more. I thought if I played extra shows or worked overtime I was giving you more because I was earning more money. I didn’t understand that what you needed more of was my time and attention, and I’m sorry for that.”
That’s huge. I take a deep breath and start to speak when he holds up his hand to stop me and presses on.
“The drinking there’s no excuse for. I did it at first to blow off steam, and after that to deal with my own disappointment. When I finally realized what a problem it was I stopped.”
“When did you…” I don’t know if I’ll want this answer, but I ask anyway. “When did you realize it was a problem?”
“The morning after the first Valentine’s Day I spent apart from you in nine years.” He shakes his head. “Huge wake-up call.”
“What happened?” I almost don’t want to know.
He l
eans close to me and takes my hand. I hold my breath as he threads my fingers through his hair until they’re touching a knot of scar tissue on his scalp, just over his temple. “I woke up that morning still drunk and covered in my own piss and blood. Feel that, right there? I split my head open on the sink. Still not sure how. And the first person I thought of was you.”
He releases my hand and I draw it back to the table. I have no idea what to say. This isn’t at all what I thought he was going to tell me. And I’m a bit pissed off that his stupid cracked-open skull was what made him quit drinking and not losing his family, but I wait for him to continue.
“I imagined what you would think if you saw me that way, and I was so ashamed - mostly that it didn’t occur to me earlier. How could you love me if I was so much like your dad, let alone stay with me? I get it now, but at the time it was a revelation. I was so fucking stupid, Cass.”
A sob wrenches from my throat at the mention of my father but there are no tears. My hands shake and I flatten my palms on the table to steady them.
“You grew up that way, and I put you right back in that awful place. The one thing I swore I would never do. And the worst part is…” He shakes his head and covers one of my trembling hands with his. “You tried to tell me, didn’t you? You told me what you needed, and I never even heard you.”
He knows. He gets it. All this time, and he’s figured it out on his own. My eyes begin to burn and there are tears before I can stop them - fat, hot tears rolling down my face and dripping from my chin.
“I realized that day I owed it to everyone to get clean. Myself, yeah. And you, because of what I put you through. But mostly for the kids. I didn’t want Chloe or Caden to have to go through what you went through with your father. And I had already started them down that path. Because I wasn’t with them.”
“You were never like my dad,” I whisper, choking on my tears.
“Close enough,” he says, pulling a tissue from the box on the table and scooting closer.
“I had a problem,” he admits as he wipes my face, gently dabbing under each of my eyes before swiping under my runny nose. I make a face at him and he cracks a smile before growing solemn again. “But I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since February of 2004.”
“I’m proud of you.” I couldn’t be more sincere, and he realizes it, because he swallows hard and looks at his feet.
“I never thought I would ever hear you say that,” he says. “All along, that’s all I ever wanted. I wanted you to be proud of me, as a husband and a father. As a man.”
I cup his cheek with my hand, and he closes his eyes and nuzzles into my palm. “Forgive me, Cass,” he whispers.
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Forgive me,” he insists.
My heart pounds as I form the words I didn’t realize I was waiting to say. “I forgive you, Grady.”
“For eleven years, I’ve missed out on what we had this week. We make a great team. Always have.”
“We do,” I agree.
“We should’ve been together, Cass. I fucked up. God, I wish I hadn’t.”
“We can’t change the past, Grady.” I’m leaking again and he reaches for another tissue, but suddenly I’m too raw to let him comfort me, and I pull back.
“That’s true,” he says, still holding onto my hand. “We can only tend to the present.”
Suddenly, I’m hot and achy, leaping out of my own skin. I’m on uncomfortable ground here, and I hate the feeling of vulnerability that shakes the earth further, leaving me reeling. Grady is both too close and too far away for what I need, and suddenly the simple things I thought I wanted - his lips on mine, his body pressed against me - have a terrible price that I’m not sure my heart is ready to pay.
When my dryer buzzes I’m grateful for the diversion and leap from my chair. Grady squeezes my hand but I slip from his grasp.
“Cass?”
I don’t want to have to answer the questions in his voice. “Tending to the present,” I offer lamely over my shoulder, blinking back tears. I can tell by his silence that he’s not fooled.
“Cass,” he rumbles.
I reach the laundry room just in time for a fresh onslaught of tears and pray like hell he doesn’t come after me. I fling open the dryer, hauling the fragrant towels out as I call over my shoulder, “Yep! Give me a second!”
My heart is pounding and I want to scream. Tend to the present. Tend to the present. First I thought he was coming to have sex with me. Then it turned into an apology. Then he made me cry. And now? “Tend to the present”? I don’t even know what that means.
You know exactly what that means, says the little voice in my head. Stop sticking your head in the sand and listen to that man, because he’s saying exactly what you want to hear.
Except he isn’t.
Is he?
I have to walk back through the kitchen to get to the hallway, and as I move quickly with the basket, Grady stands. “Cass,” he growls. He knows I’m avoiding him.
“Just a minute, Grady.” I haul it down the hallway with the basket to my chest, praying I won’t drop it. When I get to my bedroom I collapse on my bed and gulp air as if I’ve been locked away without it during our entire conversation. I am so out of my depth here.
What do I say to him?
What do I even want?
“Cass.” He taps lightly on my door and I walk to it but don’t open it. On the other side is a beautiful man whom I’ve known more than half my life, but who will be the death of me because he makes me feel things I don’t want to feel.
I open the door and face him.
He stares at me for a moment before speaking. “Tell me why you’re crying,” he presses.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Be honest, Cass.”
“I am being honest! I don’t know why I’m fucking crying! I have no idea what I’m doing - what we’re doing! And what does it matter, Grady? Why do you even care?”
“You’re my wife,” he says gently, and I freeze.
“Ex-wife, Grady.” My voice trembles with the words and I grip onto the door handle for dear life.
He shakes his head. “No, Cass. I know what I signed. I know what we are, legally. But those divorce papers don’t mean shit to me. I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old and I’ll never love another woman but you as long as I live.”
Just like that, I’m stunned into silence. He registers the shock on my face as I process what he’s said.
Grady’s hardly lived the life of a monk. I know there have been women over the years. People talk, and they love to tell me who he’s been seen with. To his credit, he’s been discreet. He hasn’t had a bunch of random women around our kids. But he sure hasn’t been lonely, either.
There was one woman in particular, Yveta, who hung around a long time, more than a year. Although I wasn’t involved in Grady’s life my friends were only too happy to tell me who she was, what she looked like, and where Grady took her.
I even saw her, once, when I was dating Adam. I was coming out of the grocery store and Grady was holding the door of his truck open for her to climb in. She was a gorgeous, dimpled, blond china doll of a woman, elegant and smiling and made up to perfection. I was wearing faded yoga pants and had my hair in a sloppy bun, and I prayed that they wouldn’t see me. They didn’t, but I never again went to the grocery store without at least putting on lipstick, because I couldn’t bear the thought of running into my ex and his perfect little girlfriend when I looked like hell. Not because I cared what he thought of me, exactly. Grady had seen me in far worse than yoga pants over the years. But no woman wants to be the sloppy ex.
Yveta stuck around a while. I heard she even went to Thanksgiving dinner at Donna’s house that year, which shocked the hell out of me. But she was gone by Christmas and even the kids didn’t know what had happened, only that their dad was single again.
“Yveta?” I ask.
“Not even close.” He takes
a step toward me. The heat flares between us, and I find myself speechless. My body has taken over, and I don’t want anything else but Grady’s hands on me. He steps closer and takes me by my wrist, his fingers circling it, his thumb at my pulse point. Just his touch makes me shiver, and not because his hands are still slightly cool. He hasn’t touched me like this in nearly eleven years. No one’s touched me with this much intent in the past eleven years, in fact. What I had in the interim with Adam was many things, but it never blazed like this.
“I loved Adam,” I say softly, trying to put the brakes on whatever’s happening here. I should’ve been more careful. When I kissed him, I wasn’t looking for that kind of reconnection. It was about comfort and familiarity. It was about lust. He’s read me wrong. He thinks I want something I know is impossible. It’s like all those nights so long ago when just his touch would lure me back into bed, and I’d forget all the things that didn’t work between us, all the the things that I needed but wasn’t getting.
He interrupts my crazy thoughts. “I know you did. But not like you loved me.”
“No.” I can’t even lie about that. “Not like you.”
“I was young and I fucked up. I’ve known that since the night you threw me out. But I love you and I’ve never stopped loving you. I’ve never stopped wishing I could have my family back.”
“It’s too late for that, Grady.” My voice trembles a bit until I clear my throat. “We had a good week. We’re friends again. Let’s just leave it and not spoil anything.” I tug my wrist back and rub my hands on my jeans, desperately trying to wipe away the moisture on my palms.
“Fuck that.” He shakes his head, dismissing what I said, but he doesn’t look angry. The look in his eyes is pure determination. He’s looking at me like he did at the football game the night we met, twenty years ago. He has a purpose, and his purpose is to win me back. He takes a step toward me, and I retreat back into the bedroom.
For Life Page 12